1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a sealing cap that is placed and fixed on the mouth of a container such as bottles made of glass, plastic and other materials, particularly to the cap structure which can be used to seal both new bottles containing unused contents and those bottles already in use so as to preserve their contents.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a cosmetic bottle or container 50 containing, e.g., a toilet lotion with no antiseptics added thereto has had its mouth covered with a rubber cap 51, and further with an aluminum cap 52 or a resin cap 53, as shown in FIGS. 11 and 12 to secure tight sealing of the bottle or container, thereby protecting the contents from quality deterioration during its preservation period from the manufacture to sale and to the start of use by consumers. When the user starts their use, he/she removes the caps 53, 52 and 51 in this order, installs another openable cap 54 separately prepared on the mouth of said container 50, as shown in FIG. 13, opens the outer sub-cap 54a of this cap 54 for using the contents, and replaces said sub-cap 54 after the use to ensure that the container 50 can be kept sealed.
However, this conventional method has such problems that the user must trouble themselves by removing said caps 51, 52 and 53 and newly installing another openable cap 54 in their place before using the contents. Along with this trouble, tight sealing by the cap of the container 50 can not be assured and there is also the fear of various bacteria entering the container 50 through the above-described cap replacement procedure. Though it is possible to keep the container 50 containing, e.g., toilet lotion, highly sterile by subjecting it to a sterilization treatment, these conditions cannot be maintained after the user begins to use the contents. Another problem is that after the container has been opened for use, the rubber cap 51, aluminum caps 52 and 53 will become waste. Since these waste materials are made of different materials, the need to dispose them separately will be another problem.
In view of these problems, this invention has been made and is intended to provide a sealing cap which will not have to be removed before use, as in conventional sealed containers, but can also be used after the start of use of the contents by consumers and maintain its sealing ability, thereby solving the above-mentioned problems.
According to a first embodiment, this invention concerns the structure of a sealing cap for containers including bottles, etc., wherein a cap-like inner stopper is placed and fixed on said container, said inner stopper having a shielding plate to seal the mouth of said container, that a step is formed at the lower end of the outer wall of said inner cap to form a larger-diameter annular strip, said annular strip being cut at a position and one end thereof protruding outside, that said annular strip is placed on top of the periphery of an annular protrusion provided at the outer circumference of said container mouth, then an outer cap is placed on said inner cap, said outer cap comprising a main cap for sealing said container mouth from above said inner cap, and a top lid for sealing a small hole opened in said main cap, that the bottom end of an outer circumferential wall of said main cap rests on the upper surface of said annular strip of said inner cap, that a guide tube surrounding said small hole of said main cap extends downward within the outer circumferential wall of said main cap, and has a lower end sharp edge, said lower-end sharp edge being located to face the shielding plate of said inner cap, and that when said annular strip of said inner cap is cut off from said inner cap and the outer cap is pressed down, said sharp lower end edge of said tube guide pierces the shield plate of said inner cap while the outer circumferential wall of said outer cap slides down until its bottom end reaches the position just below an annular protrusion formed on the outer wall of said container mouth to be fixed there.
According to a second embodiment, this invention in the sealing cap structure, in addition to the first embodiment, also provides a structure of the lower end part of the outer cap guide tube which is helically formed in such a way that the helical line of said lower end part goes downward from the highest helical position to the lowest helical position that is located almost just below the highest helical position, so that these two helical positions are arranged nearly vertically.